relationship status: scared of the booty
by Lugian Before Swine
Summary: Nishinoya has a problem. He's afraid of butts. Tanaka helps. That's it that's the whole thing. Crack. Oneshot. Butts.


**A/N: I have no excuse for this I just. Butts. Okay. So I actually ship this pairing really hard for real but uhh this is just crack. Maybe one day I'll write an actual good fic about these two but today is not that day. Also I meant for this to be like 400 words max wow it got totally out of hand.**

It was a beautiful, breezy evening, and practice had just ended. Daichi had assigned Tanaka and Nishinoya more cleaning tasks than any of the other players because the two had been particularly annoying today and Daichi was not above using his position as captain to be a bit of an asshole. (Also he had a movie date planned with Suga for that evening and wanted to be able to spend as much time with him as possible, but no one else had to know that.)

That is how Tanaka and Nishinoya ended up being the last two team members in the gym. In addition to completing their cleaning tasks, they had spent extra time arguing over who would actually get to lock the gym doors, like physically hold and turn the key, until they had decided that if Nishinoya held the key and Tanaka put his hand over Noya's, it would be like they were both locking the doors.

Reaching that decision had calmed them down somewhat, but suddenly Nishinoya got way too quiet. Unnaturally quiet. Tanaka was of course worried about his bro, but he didn't quite know how to bring up the subject of Noya's dismal aura. Until, that is, Nishinoya let out an actual sigh, and then Tanaka couldn't take it anymore.

"Noya-san," he said in as gentle a tone as he could muster, which frankly was not all that gentle, "is something wrong?"

Nishinoya looked torn. "I don't know if I can tell you. It's pretty embarrassing."

Honestly, Tanaka was a little hurt. He and Noya were best friends. If he couldn't tell Tanaka something, who could he tell? He said as much.

"Well…only if you promise not to tell anyone," Noya said finally.

"I promise!" Tanaka shouted eagerly. He was actually quite good at keeping secrets. Most of the time. Usually.

"Ryuu, I'm afraid…" he began. Tanaka assumed he meant 'afraid of telling you my secret,' and was about to respond that Noya could trust him completely, when Nishinoya finished his sentence. "I'm afraid…of butts."

"Butts?" Tanaka inquired. He had not been expecting that.

"Ugh, I knew I shouldn't have told you!" Noya wailed. He looked so sad that Tanaka wanted to hug him, but wasn't sure if that would make the situation better or worse.

"No, no, it's okay!" Tanaka said quickly. "So you're afraid of butts. That's okay. It's normal to have irrational fears of things."

"Really?" Nishinoya suddenly looked so hopeful, and it made Tanaka feel much better.

"Of course it's normal! Everyone's afraid of something. You just happen to be afraid of butts! Although," and Tanaka scratched his chin, looking thoughtful. "I think…maybe I could help you get over your fear. If you wanted."

"Could you, Ryuu? Could you really help me?" Noya's eyes were shining. He was bouncing on his toes a little. It was adorable.

Tanaka was emboldened by this. His heartbeat sped up a lot, but he chalked it up to the thrill of quashing his best bro's fear. "The great Tanaka Ryuunosuke can do anything!" he shouted, and it echoed a little around the empty gym. _So cool_, Tanaka thought. _Yes._

"What are you going to do?" Noya asked, wide-eyed and open-faced.

"Umm," Tanaka said eloquently. He had not actually thought this far ahead. "Well…you know how they say people who have phobias should face them head-on?"

Noya shivered a little, but nodded.

"Like on TV, there was this lady who was afraid of spiders, so they put her in a room with a spider and like she could watch it and stuff, and see that it wasn't so bad!" Damn, Tanaka was so excited. He was always full of great ideas, but this was a particularly great one. "So we could do the same thing! I'll just show you a nice, docile butt, and you can overcome your fear!"

"Wow, Ryuu, that's a great idea! I'm so glad I told you about this." Nishinoya looked rather thrilled by the idea. He really wanted to get over this fear. It was actually super inconvenient, especially in the locker room. "But who has a nice enough butt for the job?"

Tanaka grinned a grin that would terrify anyone who was not on the Karasuno volleyball team and was therefore subject to it on a daily basis. As it was, it gave Nishinoya confidence. "Why, I do, of course!"

Nishinoya clapped his hands, delighted. "Ryuu, you're the best!" he said, so Tanaka pulled his pants down and turned around.

He waited a few seconds, then: "Well?" he asked expectantly. "Is it working?"

"Umm," Noya answered. "It's not quite as scary when there's something covering it."

"Oh, that makes sense!" Tanaka shamelessly pulled his boxers down. Wow, this was great.

Nishinoya squeaked and jumped back a little. "I'm still scared!" he whined.

"Maybe you just have to give it a little more time," Tanaka said. "Let me know when you start feeling better!" The gym was a little drafty; it was kind of uncomfortable. But Tanaka would do anything for his friend.

After a minute or so, Noya came closer. And closer. Until he could reach out and touch Tanaka's butt. Which he did.

He retracted his hand immediately, but didn't move away. "You know," he said, "I think it's actually working!" He touched Tanaka's butt again. It was okay. He didn't feel scared. It was indeed a very docile butt.

"I'm so happy for you, Noya-san!" Tanaka said jubilantly. It was true. He was very happy for his friend. Maybe this meant that Noya would want to touch his butt more often. That would be cool. That would be really cool for reasons Tanaka did not fully understand.

Noya's hand stayed on his butt. His other hand joined it. _Cool._ "This is so great!" Noya exclaimed. "I don't feel scared at all!"

"I'm so glad it worked!" Tanaka answered. "Are you ready to be done?"

"Yeah, I guess so." Noya removed his hands.

Tanaka pulled up his boxers and pants. He turned around. Nishinoya was staring at him. His expression looked kinda weird, but in a good way. It made Tanaka smile.

"Maybe we should do that again soon," Noya said suddenly. He looked so happy. Damn, he was so cute. "It would probably be good to get more exposure, so I can become totally fearless!"

"Yeah!" Tanaka agreed really really super readily. "That's a good idea!"

Since their cleaning was done, they gathered their stuff and left the gym. They locked the doors together. It was great. Everything was great.

**Required listening (also the inspiration for the title): youtube dot com /watch?v=JdOstVSouao**


End file.
